US-Saudi Rift

S P SETH

It is an open secret that the relations between the US and Saudi Arabia, one of Washington’s important strategic allies in the Middle east, have been frayed for some years. Indeed, Riyadh has been quite unhappy about aspects of the US’ policy and let it be known without mincing words. The recent visit to Saudi Arabia of the US President Barack Obama was an attempt to address this and to reassure the kingdom that it still remained one of Washington’s main regional allies, and that its political and security interests featured prominently in US calculus.

The question then is: what are the issues that have put considerable strain on a relationship forged over many decades? It all started with the Arab Spring, especially the popular uprising in Egypt against Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorship. Saudi Arabia wanted Washington to save Mubarak and his political order. Not that the US was too keen on replacing Mubarak with an unknown and unknowable alternative. But by then the popular movement had developed its own momentum and there wasn’t really much the US could have really done to stop it. Even the Egyptian army seemed to recognize that Mubarak’s time had come and he should go.  

Riyadh favours strategic stability in the Middle East with trusted authoritarian rulers and monarchs making decisions without popular input, lest it opens up the Pandora’s box of all the unresolved issues. Things can get out of control and they did in Egypt. And when the Muslim Brotherhood came to power, with Mohammad Morsi as President, Riyadh didn’t find it a hopeful augury. At some level, Saudis and Muslim Brotherhood should be natural allies as committed Islamists. However, the latter combine political activism with their religious ideology to shape an Islamic society. And that is not good for Arab monarchs and dictators who believe in a compact between religious orthodoxy and political power, with each underpinning the other. The events in Egypt, with Muslim Brotherhood in power, seemed to seriously undermine this compact, being potentially dangerous for Saudi Arabia and its fellow monarchs in the region.

Saudi Arabia is supportive of the new military/political order in Egypt after the military coup that brought down Morsi, elevating General Abdul Fattah al-Sisi (now Field Marshal) as the country’s new strongman. He is likely soon to become the country’s new president, having decided to contest the elections. The Muslim Brotherhood will remain banned as a terrorist organization. But this has the potential, indeed already is, deeply polarizing the country with hundreds of Brotherhood supporters thrown into jails, and its leadership languishing there as well. In this situation, even though the US is not a supporter of the Brotherhood, Washington is critical of the ham-fisted approach of Sisi and people around him.

Saudi Arabia and its fellow Gulf monarchs (and Israel) would be happy to see a strong hand in Egypt, whether an outright general or in civilian garb as president, to keep things under control. And they are prepared to write a cheque of billions of dollars to stabilize the country’s economy (if that were possible), as well as the purchase of weapons for the military from Russia. During his recent visit to Russia, Putin wished Sisi luck in his resolve to “assume responsibility for the fate of the Egyptian people”, referring to his presidential ambitions. Saudi Arabia is no friend or admirer of Russia but seems likely to go along with Egypt in exercising its other options. In other words, the US-Saudi rift over Egypt is quite serious, even more so when read with other developments in the region.

Which brings us to Riyadh’s serious concern over the direction of the US’ opening with Iran over the nuclear question. Saudi Arabia never thought that the US and its European partners will reach a deal with Iran, albeit an interim one, to virtually freeze Iran’s nuclear programme. They had hoped that the US would keep Iran on edge by further expanding sanctions and/or by threatening to attack its nuclear facilities, thus forcing it to abandon its nuclear ambitions. But Obama chose a different path of exploring a diplomatic solution for a possible permanent freeze on Iran’s nuclear programme, with negotiations already under way. Which is making the Saudi ruling dynasty extremely unhappy.

Iran’s perceived nuclear ambitions are not the only problem, though they constitute a major hurdle. Iran’s links with the Syrian regime and Hezbollah (in Lebanon) are seen as projection of its larger regional ambition to carve out a determining role in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, increasingly sees itself as the guardian of the region’s Arab interests, and the custodian of Islamic holy sites. Iran represents, both in sectarian and political/strategic terms, a rival centre. While Iran is supporting and actively providing assistance to both the Syrian regime and Hezbollah in their collaborative effort to beat back the insurgents in Syria, Saudi Arabia is doing the same for the insurgents/rebels. Riyadh was terribly disappointed and angry when Obama didn’t go ahead with the planned surgical attack on Syria that might have toppled the Assad regime, instead opting for the Russian proposal for the elimination of its chemical weapons. Which has not only given the regime breathing time but also enabled it to mount fairly effective operations, with Hezbollah, to push back the rebels in key areas. 

With Russia and Iran actively supporting the Assad regime, the Saudi exasperation with the United States has, at times, been quite high. The Saudis would like the US to give sophisticated arms to the rebels in what, they regard, as an uneven and unequal battlefield between the two sides. It is not that the US doesn’t want to get rid of Assad, but it is worried about its arms falling into the wrong hands of the al-Qaeda linked/inspired groups that now outnumber and outgun the moderate and secular rebels fighting Assad. In other words, while the Saudi and US strategic interests still converge broadly, whether it is the nuclear issue or the geopolitical picture, Riyadh is not sympathetic to the need for the US to tread carefully and avoid further overreach in its already overstretched commitments in the Middle East. While Obama’s recent visit might have softened the hard edges, Riyadh is still not convinced that Washington is on the right path.  It would rather want the US to pursue a more assertive policy in the region on par with its own urgent concerns.

An important, though coincidental, factor in the Middle East is the remarkable degree of strategic convergence between Saudi Arabia and Israel, be it on the need for a harder US policy towards Iran, support for the new military order in Egypt and a tougher stance with Assad’s Syria. 

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au      

Turkey: troubled times ahead

S P SETH

Turkey is in trouble. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government are facing difficult times. Not long ago, Erdogan was the country’s brightest political star in raising Turkey’s international profile. He got rid of the country’s generals given to staging military coups in the name of maintaining its secular polity as the custodians of modern Turkey’s founder, Kemal Ataturk. By winning successive elections over the last decade with his Islamic credentials, Erdogan showed that Islam and capitalist economic model weren’t antithetical. And that a political party rooted in Islamic traditions could successfully practice democracy. So much so, Turkey was often touted as a political model for other Islamic countries.

Internationally, Erdogan carved out a high profiled role in the Middle East following the Arab Spring; though the volatile nature of the developments in that region, particularly in Syria, where he sought to play a decisive role to bring down the Bashar al-Assad regime didn’t play out to his script. In Egypt too he had a falling out with the new military-backed regime for ousting Morsi and for his support of the Muslim Brotherhood. His initiative to make Turkey a member of the European Union hasn’t worked out because of opposition, particularly from Germany and France, to incorporating a Muslim country into this exclusive European club, though efforts in this regard continue. His reputation internationally has received a setback because of his crackdown on domestic opponents, as we shall see.

All in all, he did a good job as Turkey’s Prime Minister and that, in a way, is part of the problem. This perceived success led him to presume people’s approval of whatever he might decide to do. He has become an authoritarian father figure making decisions without referring to his ‘grown up’ children.

Which is leading him into confrontation with his people in different ways. The first test was his decision to turn Istanbul’s major public park, Gezi Park, in Istanbul’s Taksim Square, into a replica of the Ottoman-era military barracks and a mall, which led to popular protests that later spread all over the country, crystalising a range of grievances against the Erdogan government. The police crackdown on the protesters led to large-scale arrests, there were fatalities and the protests were ruthlessly suppressed. Not wanting to face reality that his government was losing popularity, he blamed the protests on terrorists, vandals, looters and foreigners.

This is reflective of Erdogan’s arrogance and self-belief that he knows best. Having won a series of consecutive elections, he believes that he now has the popular mandate even to lecture people on how they should their lives. For instance, he has urged Turkish families to have at least three children. At the same time, his creeping programme of Islamisation in a society with a strong streak of secularism is not liked by many people. His government is increasingly putting curbs on drinking as it is against Islam. Indeed, there has been a concerted effort to reengineer society to conform to Islamic precepts and traditions. But Turkey is not entirely a traditional Islamic society. It is culturally pluralistic, with its secular tone set by modern Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Erdogan’s great strength was to seemingly reconcile capitalist mode of production with Islam. His Islamic credentials gave his political experiment of combining democracy and capitalism a certain moral tone, without the unsavoury effects of corruption and nepotism. No wonder, Turkey was touted as an example to other Islamic countries.  But that was not to be. The flurry of recent corruption scandals involving his ministers, their families and even his son has shaken Turkey, even more so because Erdogan and his government claimed to epitomize Islamic values. And when the news came out about the corruption scandal, claiming four ministers, he reacted angrily and blamed it on some “dirty foreign plot”. He has followed it up with purging the country’s judiciary and police, punishing them for doing a good job of trying to cleanse the system. Instead of being a statesman welcoming the opportunity to overhaul the system, he has acted like an autocrat, blaming everyone else but himself.

Turkey’s liberals hate him for his intolerance and absolutist views. In his scheme of things, the right way is the Erdogan way. He doesn’t talk to his people but he tells them what everybody should do. As Christopher de Bellaigue writes in the New York Review of Books, “…he criticizes the lives of his subjects, and his views are rarely less than vigourous. All drinkers are alcoholics; every family should have three children; wholemeal flour is best…abortion is murder and Caesarean sections should be avoided. Twitter is a ‘menace’…” Turkish society is becoming increasingly polarized.

With Erdogan behaving like a modern day Sultan at home, some of it was also projected on the international stage. For instance, in the Syrian crisis he was the first regional leader to work towards Bashar al-Assad’s overthrow, though unsuccessfully so far. In the wake of the Arab Spring he apparently had ideas to recreate Turkey’s old zone of influence on the lines of the Ottoman Empire. All these grand visions have crashed, and Erdogan is a much weaker leader than before.

Another important reason for Turkey’s declining situation is the fraying of a compact between Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party  (AKP) and Hizmet movement led by Fetullah Gulen, a spiritual leader, living in the US. Gulen has a powerful political and spiritual base in the country and joined forces with Erdogan to ease out the country’s powerful generals given to periodic military coups. But now Erdogan fears that Gulen’s supporters in the judiciary and police  are seeking to destabilize him. Which accounts for tightening his control over the judiciary and police by purging those behind investigating corruption in his government at the highest levels.

Erdogan is becoming increasingly paranoid and sees conspiracies all around. The Turkish press has been muzzled and many journalists are behind bars. The control over the Internet is being tightened to the point of virtual suffocation. With the stench of corruption reaching the highest levels, including government ministers and even the prime minister’s son (by implication the prime minister), the decade old experiment of popular democracy in Turkey appears to be rolling back. Even as the political situation is increasingly troubled, the country’s economy, Erdogan’s main achievement, is also faltering. As one Turkish political scientist has reportedly said, “ What is happening is the erosion of Turkey as a state—it is a meltdown.”

Despite such a dire picture, AKP is likely to win the next election because of the lack of an effective alternative. But Erdogan’s ambition to become the country’s executive president might further complicate the situation. His ambition to concentrate more power in his hands, at a time when corruption scandals are flying round, might prove counter-productive.

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au

Israel and its Jewish identity

Israel and its Jewish identity

S P SETH

John Kerry, US secretary of state, has been engaged in intense shuttle diplomacy to bring about a peace settlement between Israel and Palestine. Even when, at times, he has found it annoying and frustrating to deal with the Israeli government’s negativity, he has persisted. During one of his recent diplomatic trips, he let go his frustration during a television interview when he said, “ If you say you are working for peace [referring to Israel] and you want peace, and a Palestine that is a whole Palestine that belongs to the people who live there, how can you say we’re planning to build [even more settlements] in the place that will eventually be Palestine?”  But the US would still not lean on Israel to insist that it stop annexing more Palestinian territory by building any number of new settlements. Still it was refreshing to find a US leader, a rare occurrence, tell it to the Israelis the way they need to be told and more often.

As Kerry has persisted with his shuttle diplomacy, he has tended to court Israel with a suitably modified approach even closer to the Israeli position. Which led Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, to praise Kerry for his diplomatic efforts for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement, urging his country to accept the deal  being currently brokered by Washington for Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Besides, the US is willing to promote the idea of an Israeli security presence in the Jordan Valley, on the borders between the occupied West Bank and Jordan. No prize for guessing that the Palestinians are opposed to both. On the first point, they argue that it is for the Israelis to define or view themselves in whatever terms, and not for the Palestinians, the Arab world or the international community to expressly recognize that. Besides, any recognition of its Jewish character has the potential of expelling and/or treating as second class the country’s more than 1 million Arab citizens. On the question of stationing an Israeli security force within their territory, it is abhorrent on the face of it. What sort of a Palestinian state it will be when an important segment of it has Israeli troops stationed there! It will tantamount to occupation in another guise.

Why is Israel insisting on its Jewish character? Aren’t they sure who they are? And if they are, why do they need others to recognize their Jewishness? The vehemence with which Israel seeks its Jewish identity recognized has more than one meaning. At one level, there is moral repugnance at the way Israel has been created with the expulsion and killings of the Palestinians and the continuance of that process with more and more Jewish settlements. This repugnance is reinforced with the long and circuitous boundary wall further eating into Palestinian territory and reducing, what is left of Palestine into Bantustans on the lines of the old South African apartheid state.

Israel is aware of the moral odiousness with which many people in the world regard its policies and politics. The UN has been disapproving of its relentless aggression into the Palestinian territory, and its settlements are considered illegal. But with powerful and rich friends, like the United States, it has been able to continue its aggression into Palestine without any effective action by the international community. By insisting on the prior recognition of its Jewish identity, Israel seeks to whitewash the moral stench of its policies.

Another aspect of prior recognition of Israel’s Jewish identity is designed to reinforce the Zionist narrative that Judea and Samaria [Palestinian homeland] was part of the biblical Jewish homeland, and that Israel has a moral claim backed by antiquity.  A formal acceptance of Jewish identity will hopefully lend credence to Israel’s otherwise morally dubious Zionist project. No wonder, the Israeli foreign minister, Lieberman, was full of praise for John Kerry saying that, “It’s the best proposal [the identity issue and the US willingness to consider an Israeli security force in the Jordan valley] we can get and we really appreciate the efforts of Secretary of State John Kerry. He has really put a lot of energy into the issue.”

 And if the Palestinians are not willing to accept the Jewish character, Israel will simply blame them for wrecking the peace process. And this is precisely what they want-- to wreck the peace process but blame it on the Palestinians. In this way, it keeps to hold and expand the occupied territories and force out the remaining Palestinians out of their homeland. The most that they would like to entertain in the interim period, until the Palestinians are forced out entirely, is municipal administration of local affairs by Israeli-nominated Palestinians, with its security and control of finances under the Israeli government. This might have the effect of erasing the Palestinian identity. Indeed, Netanyahu and others like him have dismissed the idea of a Palestinian homeland and Palestinian identity. Any recognition of Israel’s Jewish identity by the Palestinians and the Arab world would simply hasten this process.  

Some influential figures in the Israeli government are even unhappy with the US’ willingness to put recognition of Israel’s Jewish identity on the agenda for the peace process. Though the foreign minister Lieberman has praised John Kerry for his efforts and the new initiative to incorporate Israel’s Jewish character as part of the peace agenda, Israel’s defence minister, Moshe Yaalon, let loose his annoyance and criticism of the US secretary of state’s diplomatic blitz to broker a peace settlement between Israel and Palestine. Israel’s biggest selling newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, quoted him as saying, “Secretary of State John Kerry—who has come to us determined and acting out of an incomprehensible obsession and a messianic feeling—cannot teach me a single thing about the conflict with the Palestinians.”  And he added, “The only thing that can save us is if Kerry wins the Nobel Prize and leaves us alone.” Apparently, this is the view of the Israeli government and Yaalon’s only indiscretion is that he was caught saying it behind closed doors. Of course, this drew a sharp rebuke from the US state department with its spokeswoman calling his remarks “offensive and inappropriate, especially given all that the United States is doing to support Israel’s security needs.”

But the US is so tied up with Israel and its tremendous lobbying power; it is unlikely to adversely affect their relationship. Yaalon didn’t even bother to apologize for his “offensive” remarks. He simply reiterated how important US was as an ally of Israel and said, “When there are disagreements, we work through them inside the room… including with Secretary of State Kerry…

Note: This article was first published in DailyTimes.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au

Egypt: is there a method to army’s madness?

S P SETH

The way things are going from bad to worse since Egypt’s first ever democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi of Muslim Brotherhood/ Freedom and Justice Party, was deposed by the military, one would think that the army and its shadow interim civilian government have a game plan about where they are taking the country. Morsi was removed last summer following popular demonstrations against his regime for suppressing his political opponents to usher in an Islamist autocracy. He was given 48 hours by General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who was also defence minister in Morsi’s government, to sort out the country’s political crisis and stabilize the situation. In the event that he didn’t or couldn’t, and wasn’t willing to relinquish his presidency, Morsi was deposed as the country’s president on July 3 and put behind bars where he has remained since. Since then, most Brotherhood leaders have been jailed, and more than 1000 of its supporters have been killed. But the saga of daily protests against the military regime is continuing.

While the military-appointed interim government is blaming the protests and violence on the Brotherhood, designating it as a terrorist organization, as well as banning all its charitable and social welfare outfits, the country is facing a much more pernicious threat from extremist outfits inspired by al Qaeda that recently attacked police headquarters in the northern city of Mansoura, killing 16 policemen and injuring more than 130 people. This attack, like others elsewhere in Egypt, are blamed on Brotherhood, though an al Qaeda-linked group, Ansar Beit al-Maqdes, active in Sinai where they have staged some attacks before, has claimed responsibility. Indeed, the Brotherhood has denied responsibility and strongly condemned the attack. They are not known to have any connection with al Qaeda or any such extremist outfit.  

Why is General Sisi then gunning after the Muslim Brotherhood? Because ever since the military took over power in Egypt in a coup with Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser at its helm in the fifties (though General Naguib was the nominal leader for a while), Muslim Brotherhood has been in its sight as the best organized movement to challenge the army’s domination of the national scene. Nasser went after them, filling jails with their supporters and leaders, executing some of them and apparently crushing the movement on surface, at least. The Brotherhood was never gone and bided its time that never came until recently with the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, though the popular movement against Mubarak’s rule was an amalgam of a wide array of secular elements, including women and minorities and was organized and highlighted through social media. But in the ensuing elections, the Brotherhood won with Morsi as President with Freedom and Justice Party as its political vehicle.

Interestingly, though, the army did abandon Mubarak (who was one of them) at the end because of the scale of the popular movement against him. He was becoming a liability for the military, buoyed up by the adulation of the people for the army on their side. After Mubarak’s fall, and the Brotherhood’s victory, the army tried to manipulate the political system to entrench its supremacy but, by then, it looked like it was too late. However, because the Brotherhood had waited so long to wield power to reshape Egypt into their Islamist mould, they were in a hurry to overhaul and control all state institutions for their ideological agenda. They simply forgot that the Arab Spring that brought down Mubarak was a broad church, which included people strongly opposed to Brotherhood’s agenda, including some Islamist groups. And in the process they succeeded in creating a popular movement against them, even looking bigger than the crowds that had rallied against Mubarak in Tahrir Square and elsewhere in the country. And many anti-Morsi protesters looked to the army to resolve the situation. Which they did by removing Morsi as the country’s president, convinced that from now on they would have people on their side.

 But if people were expecting the army to restore democracy, they soon found out that it was more interested in restoring its own power by taking on their old foe, the Muslim Brotherhood. Indeed, they are going to try Morsi for all sorts of crimes, including murder, though the trial keeps on being adjourned, possibly to avoid more protests and violence. The Brotherhood has been declared a terrorist organization, protests have been banned and even prominent secular leaders of the revolution against Mubarak have been arrested. Indeed, there is a not so subtle attempt to whitewash the Arab Spring by sparing Mubarak from being tried for murderous attacks on protestors in the dying days of his regime. Even the spontaneous jail breaks that occurred releasing political prisoners, like Morsi, during the 2011 uprising against the Mubarak regime, will result in criminal charges of collaborating with foreign militants, like Palestinians and Hezbollah elements. General Sisi and his interim government appear to have lost touch with reality.

However, there is probably a method to their madness. They seem to think, and they might not be all that wrong, that Egyptian people, by and large, are sick of the continuing unrest and violence in the country and would like it to stop. The economy is in a mess, hurting the common man the most. An important source of income and employment from foreign tourists is almost dried up. While many people might sympathize with the Brotherhood, they probably have no more energy for non-stop protests and killings. And the army seems to be the only organized institution, along with police, that might put an end to Egypt’s nightmare. Which explains its enthusiasm about the referendum on the revised constitution that will make army the ultimate arbiter of Egypt’s political system. With the Muslim Brotherhood banned, and the state machinery geared to make the referendum ‘a success’, its result seems a foregone conclusion. And General Sisi has indicated that after the referendum he would seek presidency as the candidate of the Egyptian people and with army’s mandate.

The problem, though, is that the Brotherhood is strongly entrenched in Egyptian society politically and, more importantly, through its vast network of charities, medical facilities and social welfare in general. And by banning these activities of the Muslim Brotherhood, the army will be doing great disservice to many poor Egyptians dependent on these services. Mubarak had recognized the important role that the Muslim Brotherhood-related charities played in Egyptian society where state services were either inadequate or non-existent. Therefore, even when the Muslim Brotherhood was banned under his regime, their charities and related organizations were still functional.

By banning all things related to the Brotherhood, the military might end up making many people angry and unhappy. At another level, by pushing the Brotherhood into a corner giving them no space to function in any way, the army might push some among them into al Qaeda type terrorism and that will be a terrible outcome for the country leading to a prolonged civil war; not unlike the situation in Algeria in the nineties where the annulment of an election verdict for an Islamic party by the military, led to a long drawn out civil war.

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au